Sexual Rules in the Power Game

Why are there so many cases of sexual misconduct? What is causing this surge of revelations? Why is everyone so shocked and surprised?

Those were always the rules to the game.

You knew it. I knew it. Our parents knew it. The presidents down through the ages knew it. The preachers and priests knew it. By the time we were twelve years old, maybe younger, we ALL knew it.

Men were given permission by our culture to play around, to take whatever the market would bear, to enjoy their sexuality however and whenever they could. And, if the man had power and money, he was given even more leeway. Oh, was he ever.

Women on the other hand, were assigned the role of sexual gatekeeper with harsh consequences for expressing their sexual desires, lots of rules for how and when it was permissible and ultimately loads of responsibility as birth was usually a natural outcome. Women had no power, no income, no rights and little autonomy.

Everyone knew those were the rules to the game. EVERYONE. So, we played by them. And, there were winners and there were losers.

Then, as is sometimes the case, the balance of power shifted ever so slightly, inch by inch, until one day people started to talk about those rules, challenge the cultural expectations and confront the socially acceptable behaviors. Suddenly, many of the behaviors that most people simply took for granted appeared rather grim when exposed to the stark light of day.

We thought about our daughters, our mothers, our brothers and fathers and we wondered if they, too, had been victims or victimizers of such a vast social conspiracy to keep the power brokers forever in a secure place. Women began to wonder why they had chosen the biggest power brokers and made them kings or fathers of their children when their were better, more empathetic, options available to them.

We all wondered — how did it come to this. How?

It's so hard, almost impossible, for people to live their lives any differently than the pack. Most of us never even question why we do the things we do. Our world view was handed to us at birth and we grew up thinking that this was life. So, thousands and thousands and thousands of people get up every morning and go about their business of living the same way that everyone else around them is living, practically carbon copies of one designated and fully approved model.

Every time, however, we do something, anything, just because that's the way we were told it should be done, we've allowed ourselves to be robbed of our freedom.

It's that simple and that hard. And, let me tell you, if you choose to do it differently, people will squirm when they're around you. Deviate ever so slightly from the approved cultural path and you're immediately suspect. Speak out against something that no one is willing to confront and you'll be ostracized and told to be quiet. It's lonely being different from the pack. It can even get you killed. Try questioning a beloved cultural belief. Try it and see what happens. Someone has to start. They are the brave ones. The rest will keep doing what the pack is doing for generations to come until one of the few brave ones speaks out. The masses will stand by and merely watch the rare brave ones but remain silent until there's enough momentum to make them feel like it's safe enough to take the risk of joining the cause.

That's why it takes sooooooooooo fucking long to change things.

The heroes are often a lone voice crying in the wilderness while everybody else is pretending that everything is just fine. Thus, corruption of power becomes privilege for some and strips others of any true freedom or personal autonomy. And, we can count on it playing out like this every time. It's that predictable. Whether we're talking about gay rights, women's rights, children's rights or animal rights, it's all the same. Society tells us how to behave within the cultural limitations it sets for each group and then we're raised to be compliant and accommodating.

So I ask again. Why is everyone acting so damn surprised?

Please stop pretending to be shocked by all of these sexually aggressive revelations, because unless you were born in an entirely different culture with entirely different expectations, you always knew these were our rules. Admit it!

I'm a myth buster. My recent published book - Have We Been Screwed? Trading Freedom for Fairy Tales - can be purchased on Amazon.

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You are exactly correct. Everybody knew the rules and the ones that could do so broke them. We all stayed quiet mostly until the last election. That was when the lying pussy grabber got in the White House and everything changed. The 16 women accusing him are called liars and he thought his money gave him privilege and exemption while the rest of us were supposed to believe him.

The current explosion in acts of sexual misconduct may have happened at this time anyway. It was just time for it to happen. I look at it as a phenomenon of out last election and the liars in power today. Is it coincidence that it happened just now? Maybe not.

Loren, yes, we should and shall mention that the bible simply does not support equal rights, not just for women, but also children and slaves. The whole premise of the scriptures is that there was and is a chosen people. Plus, there is such a strong stench in the scriptures of god as a cosmic coercer himself that we should be able to easily recognize ourselves in this very flawed deity. None of this is really about sex. All of it is about power. Sex is just sex.Power, however, is the best aphrodisiac.

On the phallic skywriting Bertold mentioned, some people were offended.

A mother who lives in Okanogan who took pictures of the drawings reached out to KREM 2 to complain about the images, saying she was upset she might have to explain to her young children what the drawings were.

In a statement to KREM 2 News navy officials said, "The Navy holds its aircrew to the highest standards and we find this absolutely unacceptable, of zero training value and we are holding the crew accountable."

The Federal Aviation Administration were the ones acting like mature adults:

FAA officials said unless the act poses a safety risk, there is nothing they can do about. The official said they "cannot police morality."

Shall we mention that this attitude is reinforced throughout the bible, that woman effectively have no authority, are worth half what a man is, and may be held to account for adultery, where the man gets off scot-free? Also worthy of note is that female equality is a relatively new concept, coming to the fore only in roughly the last 150-200 years, and still resisted by strongholds such as the Roman Catholic Church, which allows no women to join the clergy. Islam is no better in this regard.

Male chauvinism may not have originated with religion, but male-dominated religion has been used to reinforce males' position with virtually every opportunity afforded it.

When a monkey flings or flung his ding or dung we are in the zone of the monkey. The monkeys who monkey most and fling or flung their ding or dung are the monkeys for whom the power has in their direction swung.

I agree. Sadly it seems of late that the critical mass of cultural shifting is moving in the wrong direction. It's good that more people are speaking up right now and more abusers are being called out, but at the same time the bullshit biblical "justifications" for abusive dealings are getting louder. We thought cultural expectations around racism had changed over time, and all of a sudden they hadn't.

I have to admit it's weird when people I used to admire (Kevin Spacey and Al Franken come to mind) turn out to be creeps. Treating other people like shit is apparently an equal opportunity employer and transcends politics.

Personally it's a puzzlement to me, because what's arousing about sex is the other person being aroused too. Coerced sex to the slightest extent seems like a self-negating proposition so far as I'm concerned, but as you say, power. I'm glad my neurons aren't wired for domination or submission.

That is funny, but it's really has nothing to do with maturity. It has everything to do with power. Laws will only curb it a little. The best way to control people's behavior is through cultural expectations that [pretty well everyone buys into without even knowing that they're doing so. If we can manage over time to change the culture world view, most men will comply. They do what they do because they can. In fact, they do what they do because they are told subliminally, in church, in advertising, by their parents, pop culture, literature that it's expected.That's true of almost everyone. If you'd been raised in a culture where men and women wore no clothes, you'd think that was normal. We are technologically advanced but socially stunted. If we ever want to reach a start trek world, we'll have to shift our cultural expectations considerably.

Wait a minute -- are you saying men don't always behave like mature adults???

The Spokesman-Review | 17 Nov 2017 | by Ryan CollingwoodOKANOGAN, Wash. -- Look! Up in the sky!It's a bird.It's a plane.No, it's a phallic skydrawing, and a military aircraft may be the culprit.Okanogan residents told The Spokesman-Review that they saw the male genitalia deliberately being drawn in the skies above their town by a jet around noon Thursday.Images of the drawing were quickly posted to social media, residents said, and sent around town through text message.